like most others I have read

My husband and I have been together for 9 years, married for 6. We have 2 amazing kids (6yr old son and 4yr old daughter). There was signs for ADHD before we were married - in hindsight it was obvious - but I didn't even know what it was. We just made a great team. I easily picked up the things he would drop the ball on - very naturally and he kept me from being so serious, it was like he helped to take the weight of the world off my shoulders. I could see us working so well in a marriage. He was so cute and artistic and dopey - I adored him. We got engaged and a few months later I found out I was pregnant. We had decided to get married across the country in Yosemite CA already and I didn't want a shot gun wedding (I was 29, successful and was fine with having a baby before the wedding) so wedding plans stayed as they were and we also prepared for our son. Quentin was born and two months later we were married. I took an extended leave from my job as a manager for a bank for a total of 4 months off. I had thought that I would have my son and put him in daycare and we'd continue on with life but when the time came I struggled. My husbands company was not successful and the economy was starting to crumble. With my commute, I was away from my husband and son from 6 in the morning until 7 at night. I was paying $1600 a month in daycare - more then my husband made in a month so I stared talking to him about becoming a stay at home dad. I just wanted our child to be raised by us. I was making a wonderful salary, great benefits and bonuses. He wouldn't do it. He wanted to be "the provider" even though there was no way he could do it. We ended up buying a house closer to my family - about 4 hours from where we were. My uncle hooked him up with a job not making great $ but it was a start and my husband is a very talented carpenter so we figured side work was an option. I transferred within the company and took a lesser position and worked part time until I found out I was pregnant with #2 and Mike finally got health benefits. Things started to get really bad. My husbands focus was so far away. I would cry and beg him to help me. I started to think he was passive aggressive. He even forgot my birthday. He'd always tell me if I spoke nicer then he wouldn't get so mad at me or ignore my requests but I had already seen that when I asked him to do something I had to be very clear. He didn't seem to get what I needed. I would tell him I need A, B and C - and he would start jumping through hoops to give me D, E and F and then get mad at me when I got frustrated. My son was only one at this point, we hadn't even been married for a year. I had my daughter and things just got worse. He wouldn't follow through on anything. Money was so tight. My husband kept insisting he'd get side work - he was insistent that I didn't go back to work because I was looking for something opposite his schedule to avoid babysitters or daycare which at this point we really couldn't afford. My parents started buying me gift cards for gas and food - they were giving me $600 a month and I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I finally just took matters into my own hands and got an evening job, regardless of what he wanted. I was so lonely and tired. I had a 2 and 3 year old at this time, I did all the house work and my husband was non existent to me. He was like a 3rd child just sucking the energy from me. A third child with the ability to make financial decisions. I also found out I had an autoimmune disorder called hashimoto's thyroid which is pretty much an underactive thyroid. It was like he didn't care. Everything was because I didn't speak nice enough or I wasn't cutting our budget smaller - I was seriously spending $75 a week on food to feed our family of 4 and that included diapers. I was begging him to do marriage counseling and I had started going to a therapist myself because even though my family could see it - I didn't want to talk about it with them. I was sick of it and knowing that I had the ability to financially support myself and the kids I set out a plan to leave. Well when my feet were out the door he begged me not to go - he agreed to go to a marriage counselor. He was then diagnosed with ADHD and it felt like a slap in my face - like everything I had been put through now had an excuse. He started medication and didn't like the way it made him feel so he stopped it. I started reading on ADHD and with the help of my therapist started to understand it. We stopped going to marriage counseling amd we were slowly putting our marriage back together and then suddenly he decided he wanted to be a tattoo artist. Knowing that he is unhappy at work, I researched options for him - our kids were getting older and I knew that when my daughter was going to go into kindergarten I would return to a professional career. There was a tattoo school in our area. It was out of our price range but with careful planning I thought we'd be able to swing it within a year or so. Nope not for my husband - he insisted on doing it now. He talked to his dad and told me his father was paying for it and took two weeks off of work (please remember he works for my uncle). Well his father generously paid $1000 of the tuition and he took out a $2000 loan without talking to me about it. When I did find out about it I was upset - especially because we were still in the negative each month. I was apparently being unsupportive. He did his two weeks of classes and really excelled. He is a super talented artist and I knew he would. I had to sit him down and explain to him that he was not, under any circumstances, to quit his day job. I have to talk to him like that so he doesn't misunderstand what my meaning is. When the Affordable Health Care Act came into play the company he worked for took it as an opportunity to change our health care and put me on a Working spouse plan which had a super high deductible. I suddenly could no longer afford my thyroid medication. We were still living so paycheck to paycheck. I made a decision to go back into banking and was able to get an entry level position with a great credit union. Knowing myself I am confident that I will move up quickly, but I also knew on top of my new full time day job I would still need to work a few days at my job at the restaurant to make up for the kids after care cost at school that we never had to worry about before. At this point though I was off of my thyroid meds for 3 months, but within a month of having the job I would have the best health benefits for our family and we could start getting back on track again. I started my job on March 10th of this past year. My son is in Kindergarten and my daughter is in nursery school full time. On March 13th, my husband came home and told me he accepted a 5 night a week tattoo apprenticeship. He was going to keep his day job and work opposite my schedule. I explained to him our finances - I wrote it out - I explained to him I was exhausted having been without my thyroid medication for 3 months and I wouldn't have them until our new health insurance kicked in in April. I reminded him of my grandmothers recent diagnoses of terminal lung cancer. I reminded him I still need to work a part time job and was hoping to serve tables on Friday nights and bartend Saturday nights at the restaurant so I didn't have to work 7 days a week. I told him I couldn't physically work 7 days a week, I explained to him that I was really depressed... and he told me he had to do this unpaid apprenticeship and that it was imperative that he was there on Friday and Saturday nights. That once he started tattooing he could quit his day job and we'd make so much money. I, again was being unsupportive. It's now June and I have been working 7 days a week and we are just barely getting by. I have explained to him that everyday more resentment fills my heart. I told him that he need to see a therapist. I tried to explain to him more about the ADHD which just makes him angry. I have been seeing my therapist this whole time. I am trying not to be depressed. I have to focus to not yell at my kids when I am tired, which is always. Thank God I have usable health benefits now and am back on my thyroid medication. If I function through my day without being mean to him he thinks everything is ok and actually tries to get romantic, only to get angry when I turn him down or ignore him. I can't be any more direct then I have been with him. I also can't live the rest of my life trying to play catch up to whatever his whim may be. I don't understand why he won't talk to someone. I don't understand why he isn't more curious about ADHD. I have gotten to a point where I think I hate him. I hate him for me wanting to leave him and break up our family. He is a great dad. Why can't he just meet me even a third of the way. I am so tired of it all. My poor children - I love them so much and I don't think they will understand. I will look like the cruel one if I leave. Why doesn't he care that I want to leave? I can't believe this is my life right now. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read my vent and I am sorry for the long windedness

Comments

I have no advice because I am in a very similar situation as you. And yes, it sucks. And I also can't believe how we got to this point. My last step is going to be trying marriage counseling, A while ago he agreed to it, but we have not had the money thanks to him getting fired last year and starting his home business (yet not bringing in any money.) I know you said you have a therapist, but have you guys tried couples counseling? My thought on that is that maybe if we have an unbiased person there, we can help hash things out. He has been on meds in the past, but has made no effort to try meds/therapy again (not that we can afford it!) When I brought it up once, he said, "Why should I have to pay money to feel better??" I also cannot understand that logice and cannot understand that if you are constantly frustrated and angry about losing things or being disorganized, then why would you not want to do something about it??? So, with money being an issue for you like it is for us, I don't know if you can do couple's counseling. I am going to call a place that has a sliding fee scale and plead my case. Maybe someone else telling him would do it.

I also feel like I would have to be the one to leave, but would look like the "bad guy" to the kids. He can be a really fun dad, but he also can wig out at something small. However, I think at my kids' ages (9 and 6) they would blame me for breaking up the marriage even though they have witnessed many of his outbursts and have been directly affected by them. I would like to leave and start anew somewhere because this house is such a mess thanks to his unfinished projects. However, with both of our names on the house, I would not trust him to pay the mortgage on time and not ruin my credit (and I could see him not paying out of spite). Yet, I don't know how I could physically get him to leave.

We have been married 14 years and this past year has been the worst thanks to problems he has cause our family (oh, like getting fired, getting arrested, and then pretty much not doing anything to help our family finances for a year.). He "works" from home and is always here. He tries to take over stuff around the house and being unstructured has caused him to start a bazillion more things around the house that he hsadn't finished. I sometimes dread coming I really dislike him. We don't talk about anything of substance and haven't had sex since Jan. (He has made no attempts and I decided that since I have no emotional connection with him right now, I am not going to "fake it" and initiate just because I feel like I should. )

I have stayed at home with my kids and had a slew of part-time jobs. I am currently working three jobs and took classes to renew my teaching license. I am praying that I can find a full-time teaching job this fall. The workload of going back to a full-time job with 2 kids is overwhelming to think about, however it is the only way I can even think about leaving, if I go that route. Honestly, neither of us could afford to move out at this point, so I am trying to just make the best of it and avoid conflict as much as possible.

Sorry this turned into a vent from me instead of actual help for you. But, when I first found this site, I know it helped knowing I was not alone and I was not crazy! Feel free to vent anytime. What does your therapist say about the situation? I did see a therapist on my own for a while, too. But it turned into me just venting about things he did and not being able to do anything about it because he won't get help. Good luck to you and see if you can try couple's counseling. Like I said, that is my next step.

Mine was just a vent also. No need to apologize. I've been checking out this site for months and finally wanted to put my frustration out there. People who don't have husband with adhd don't understand. My sister thinks I should be tougher with him. She doesn't understand that he does what he wants regardless what I say. We did marriage counseling for almost a year after I almost left two years ago. He felt that the counselor was attacking him because when he would contradict himself she would call him out in it. He seemed to be working with me though so we stopped going. Our counselor asked him to please keep coming in on his own but he . He has agreed to do marriage counseling again but he won't go the nights he had his apprenticeship and wants to go during the day, but I am so new at my job, I don't have paid time off yet plus I don't want him to skipout his day job since he's always in trouble for not completing his work in a timely manner and leaves whenever he gets the whim. I really wish he'd go on his own. I think me being there hurts the situation and he doesn't look himself at all.

Oh my god. I am you and you are me. Different stories, of course, but the same feelings. I have a 6 year old boy and 3 year old girl. My son has Aspergers, which is very high functioning autism. I can't imagine taking my kids away from their dad, who does love them (although he really struggles at how to communicate and relate to them), but that's all I fantasize about. Leaving. My education has expired, I have been a stay at home for so long, so I don't have a better paying career to fall back on. I can't work, anyhow, as my special needs son needs me to be home. So I really feel trapped. If I leave, it'll be on welfare and I don't know if I can face that. My husband was dx'd two months ago. He lives in such a blind state. He's blind to me. Has no clue. None. He's very hurtful and has no friggin idea that he crushes me. He's a liar. He's an underachiever. Although when we first got together he was a pro golfer! I never would have thought he would unravel as fast as he did. He was a great player, thought we'd have a great life. All the things he had issues with were ADHD and I didn't know it. I just thought his parents had spoiled him, which they did, but I now know it was overcompensation for a child/kid/teen/young adult that couldn't execute any life skills. He is my third child, too. I'm exhausted. It is hard to be the momma of an autistic child. I have struggled, worked hard, been eaten alive with stress worrying if I am doing what I can for both of my kids. And he has NO CLUE ABOUT WHAT I DO. He's listened to me, but he hasn't helped me. I don't bother asking for it because what is the friggin point. He won't get, or will procrastinate, or forget anyways, like with very other thing in this wretched life I apparently chose for myself. I'm in shock that this is my life. He says he cares and loves me. But it's him who he loves. I am very angry and hurt. And I'm 37 all I'm doing is getting older and uglier. Even if I left, no one is going to want an old, exhausted, chronically in pain, stressed out mother with two kids. I have been lonely for so long. I am a ghost in my own house. I'm not even sure how my daughter came to be! I used to put effort and hope into us, but I went ignored and emotionally abused that the effort and hope dried up a long time ago. If I had money, I would go. I'm just nothing but a servant. A mother. I love my children, oh god how I do. But all I am is a workhorse servant who sits at the end of the day and wonders if it's all my fault. It has to be. I hate ADHD and I hate living in this fucking house!!!! I used to like me.